[[#|James]] Merrill, born March 3rd 1926 and died February 6th 1995. He was born in New York City and his parents got [[#|divorced]] in 1939. From age eight to age sixteen [[#|James]]'s father already had a book full of his poems. [[#|James]] went to [[#|Amherst College]] where he met [[#|Robert]] Frost and James had to leave early to serve in the U.S. military in 1944 and returned in 1947. After he graduated he taught at [[#|Bard college]] and left a year later to go to Europe for two and a half years. His first publish was First Poems in 1951. He moved to Stonington in 1985 and in that same year he published his first play "The Immortal Husband". James wrote a second novel "The Notebook" in 1965. His "Nights and Days" book won the national book award in [[#|poetry]] in 1966. James was Chancellor at the Academy of American Poets in 1979 until he died sixteen years later.
The Victor Dog
Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez, The little white dog on the Victor label Listens long and hard as he is able. It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.
From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained. He even listens earnestly to Bloch, Then builds a church upon our acid rock. He's man's--no--he's the Leiermann's best friend,
Or would be if hearing and listening were the same. Does he hear?I fancy he rather smells Those lemon-gold arpeggios in Ravel's "Les jets d'eau du palais de ceux qui s'aiment.
"He ponders the Schumann Concerto's tall willow hit By lightning, and stays put.When he surmises Through one of Bach's eternal boxwood mazes The oboe pungent as a bitch in heat,
Or when the calypso decants its raw bay rum Or the moon in Wozzeck reddens ripe for murder, He doesn't sneeze or howl; just listens harder. Adamant needles bear down on him from
Whirling of outer space, too black, too near-- But he was taught as a puppy not to flinch, Much less to imitate his bête noire Blanche Who barked, fat foolish creature, at King Lear.
Still others fought in the road's filth over Jezebel, Slavered on hearths of horned and pelted barons. His forebears lacked, to say the least, forebearance. Can nature change in him?Nothing's impossible.
The last chord fades.The night is cold and fine. His master's voice rasps through the grooves' bare groves. Obediently, in silence like the grave's He sleeps there on the still-warm gramophone
Only to dream he is at the première of a Handel Opera long thought lost--Il Cane Minore. Its allegorical subject is his story! A little dog revolving round a spindle
Gives rise to harmonies beyond belief, A cast of stars . . . . Is there in Victor's [[#|heart]] No honey for the vanquished?Art is art. The life it asks of us is a dog's life.
By: James Merrill
MIRROR
BY JAMES MERRILL
I grow old under an intensityOf questioning looks. Nonsense,I try to say, I cannot teach you childrenHow to live.—If not you, who will?Cries one of them aloud, grasping my gildedFrame till the world sways. If not you, who will?Between their visits the table, its arrangementOf Bible, fern and Paisley, all past change,Does very nicely. If ever I feel curiousAs to what others endure,Across the parlor you provide examples,Wide open, sunny, of everything I amNot. You embrace a whole world without once caringTo set it in [[#|order]]. That takes thought. Out thereSomething is being picked. The red-and-white bandannasGo to my heart. A fine young manRides by on horseback. Now the door shuts. HesterConfides in me her first unhappiness.This much, you see, would never have been fittedTogether, but for me. Why then is itThey more and more neglect me? Late one sleeplessMidsummer night I strained to keepFive tapers from your breathing. No, the widowedCousin said, let them go out. I did.The room brimmed with gray sound, all the instreamingMuslin of your dream . . .Years later now, two of the grown grandchildrenSit with novels face-down on the sill,Content to muse upon your tall transparence,Your clouds, brown fields, persimmon farAnd cypress near. One speaks. How superficialAppearances are! Since then, as if a fishHad broken the perfect silver of my reflectiveness,I have lapses. I suspectLooks from behind, where nothing is, cool gazesThrough the blind flaws of my mind. As days,As decades lengthen, this visionSpreads and blackens. I do not know whose it is,But I think it watches for my last silverTo blister, flake, float leaf by life, each milling-Downward dumb conceit, to a standstillFrom which not even you strike any brilliantChord in me, and to a faceless will,Echo of mine, I am amenable.
4/21/11
James Merrill
1926- 1995
The Victor Dog
Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez,
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.
From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch,
Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He's man's--no--he's the Leiermann's best friend,
Or would be if hearing and listening were the same.
Does he hear?I fancy he rather smells
Those lemon-gold arpeggios in Ravel's
"Les jets d'eau du palais de ceux qui s'aiment.
"He ponders the Schumann Concerto's tall willow hit
By lightning, and stays put.When he surmises
Through one of Bach's eternal boxwood mazes
The oboe pungent as a bitch in heat,
Or when the calypso decants its raw bay rum
Or the moon in Wozzeck reddens ripe for murder,
He doesn't sneeze or howl; just listens harder.
Adamant needles bear down on him from
Whirling of outer space, too black, too near--
But he was taught as a puppy not to flinch,
Much less to imitate his bête noire Blanche
Who barked, fat foolish creature, at King Lear.
Still others fought in the road's filth over Jezebel,
Slavered on hearths of horned and pelted barons.
His forebears lacked, to say the least, forebearance.
Can nature change in him?Nothing's impossible.
The last chord fades.The night is cold and fine.
His master's voice rasps through the grooves' bare groves.
Obediently, in silence like the grave's
He sleeps there on the still-warm gramophone
Only to dream he is at the première of a Handel
Opera long thought lost--Il Cane Minore.
Its allegorical subject is his story!
A little dog revolving round a spindle
Gives rise to harmonies beyond belief,
A cast of stars . . . . Is there in Victor's [[#|heart]]
No honey for the vanquished?Art is art.
The life it asks of us is a dog's life.
By: James Merrill
MIRROR
BY JAMES MERRILLI grow old under an intensityOf questioning looks. Nonsense,I try to say, I cannot teach you childrenHow to live.—If not you, who will?Cries one of them aloud, grasping my gildedFrame till the world sways. If not you, who will?Between their visits the table, its arrangementOf Bible, fern and Paisley, all past change,Does very nicely. If ever I feel curiousAs to what others endure,Across the parlor you provide examples,Wide open, sunny, of everything I amNot. You embrace a whole world without once caringTo set it in [[#|order]]. That takes thought. Out thereSomething is being picked. The red-and-white bandannasGo to my heart. A fine young manRides by on horseback. Now the door shuts. HesterConfides in me her first unhappiness.This much, you see, would never have been fittedTogether, but for me. Why then is itThey more and more neglect me? Late one sleeplessMidsummer night I strained to keepFive tapers from your breathing. No, the widowedCousin said, let them go out. I did.The room brimmed with gray sound, all the instreamingMuslin of your dream . . .Years later now, two of the grown grandchildrenSit with novels face-down on the sill,Content to muse upon your tall transparence,Your clouds, brown fields, persimmon farAnd cypress near. One speaks. How superficialAppearances are! Since then, as if a fishHad broken the perfect silver of my reflectiveness,I have lapses. I suspectLooks from behind, where nothing is, cool gazesThrough the blind flaws of my mind. As days,As decades lengthen, this visionSpreads and blackens. I do not know whose it is,But I think it watches for my last silverTo blister, flake, float leaf by life, each milling-Downward dumb conceit, to a standstillFrom which not even you strike any brilliantChord in me, and to a faceless will,Echo of mine, I am amenable.
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